HAPPY NEW YEAR, Mr PRESIDENT. I wish to join mollions of Migerians to wish our president Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan happy new year. No doubt the year 2014 was a very very bad year for Nigerians. It was the year that the nation witnessed an upsurge in the activities of terrorists, seroius communual clashes resulting in heavy casualties and displacement of millions of Nigerians. That year 2014 was also the year. In which over 200 budding young girls were forcefully abducted from Chibok and hundreds of school children were murdered in cool blood by the Boko Haram in Bonu Yade and other parts of Yobe state. It was also in 2014 that corruption ( or is stealing) was pervasive in govt; with the infamous Stella Oduas bullet proof ( or is it bullet ridden) cars which cost us Millions of Naira, the NNPC fraud in trillions of Naira, the oil theft problem, the pension fund scam, the Allison Madueke private jet scandal and other cases of corruption too numerous to mention. 2014 also was the year Mr President decided through the CBN to devalue our currency and through it our lives. Nigerians will also remembet 2014 as the year of darkness in the power sector inspite of trillions of Naira injected in unsucsessful reform. In that year, Nigeria recorded the lowest result in WAEC exams. Our Universities and polytechnics were locked for more than six months due to strike in 2014, despite govt policies to create millions. Of jobs in the economy, Unemployment rate hit the roof and many graduates lost their lives struggling to get the few employment chances advertised by the Immigration service which also ripped the applicants millions of Naira in application fee scam. Mr president as i wish you a happy new year i also wish to remind you with utmost respect and humility that we have entered the new year carrying forward with us a litany of lingering problems from last year ; which the govt has either failed to address or has demonstrated a lack of capacity or the required political will to address. The Odua scandal was covered until she left the govt and is now using the loot to buy her way to the senate in 2015, Maduekwe Allison I will like to believe is still using private jets for private and official trips and we must maitain those jets at any cost she likes, the chibok girls are still in limbo, boko haram is more deadly and our oil resources will soon be exhausted by the oil theives. Who steal crude oil in the day time without challenge. Unemployed youths will now find new jobs as political thugs in 2015, since there is no sustainable employment to keep them in check. SURE -P is giving stipends to selected youths in the name of empowerment while reserving the billions for the high and mighty for contracts and supplies, even though the subsidy fund is squeezed from the sweat and blood of ordinary Nigerians. May I also remind Your Excellency that in 2014 Mr president imposed a state of emergency at least two times in the North East in a bid to curb insurgency in the region. It was also the year trillions of Naira was sacrificed from our national budget to support the war against terror. I also remember how your request to further extend the state of emergency in those states suffered a seroius opposition in the national assembly. Thank God you were able to pull through without the extension. Sir, is it a proof that the previous declarations of state of emergency were unncessary in the first place? Paradoxically, it was in 2014 that the terrorists became more incissive and widespread in their attacks. They expanded their operations from their traditional strong hold in Bornu and Yobe to Adamawa, Gombe Bauchi,the FCT and Kano leaving in their trail, tears, anguish and blood. In 2014, the terrorists also had the effontry to capture territories and hoisted their flags on our land while Nigerians in those areas were forced to relocate to Cameroun,Chad and Niger where most of them have now found a safe haven as refugees. Sir, the list of travails and tribulations Nigerians went through in the penultimate year 2014 are too numerous to mention. I only tried to bring to your attention a few of the important and burning issues that overwhelmed us in the year 2014, though I know you are fully aware of them. Mr President i must be fair to you and your administration in the efforts you are putting to tackle some of these problems. You are doing your best to address the serious problem of insurgency. You are deploying men and materials to the battle feild. Our military have started to gradually recover some of the lost territories from Boko haram. Your govt has rebased the economy and made Nigeria the largest though not the most efficient economy in Africa. However the impact of this achievement is yet to be felt by ordinary Nigerians and the effect has been wiped out by devaluation and the consequent hike in the rate of inflation. Sir in your new year message to Nigerians you promised us a violent free election this year. This is reassuring and i join you in prayers that God in his infinite mercy may grant this your laudable wish which is co-terminus with our collective desire. I also join you to call on all Nigerians to eschew violence and conduct ourselves in peaceful manner during the election and maintain peace after the declration of the results. I wish to particularly enjoin INEC and other bodies entrusted with the conduct of elections to be fair, honest and transparent in the execution of their mandate. One last issue though not least in importance, Mr president you did not give us an update on the situation of our girls from chibok. You mentioned nothing about them in your christmas and new year messages. Are we to assume that the matter is closed? Also we waited in vain for the international audit report on the NNPC which at the heat of the crisis, both the Finance Minister and your good self assured all Nigetians that you will make public. We are all aware that the Audit firm engaged for the exercise was given a timeframe to conclude the assignment. By my reckoning, that time has since elapsed and the public is anxiously waiting for Mr president to unveil the report. Once more, happy new year my President, i dont envy you at all.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 10:05:49 +0000
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